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Your skin, so wet. . .

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Good deeds, no matter what form they came in or who they were for, were not Inuyasha’s thing. He didn’t do good guy that well. He looked after what was his and that was it. And he didn’t have anything, he looked after himself.
He looked after himself.

“I’m going to die,” Inuyasha muttered to himself, attempting to lighten the situation with a little negative prophesising. He was fairly sure it was a side-effect of his terrified hysteria, which was deeply buried beneath his macho pride, but on the rise. Risking his life for his pride was something he did a lot of, but never, never when he was human.

And to top it off, he was wearing nothing but his goddamn pants.

This was why he should have been left after the snake bit him, the hanyou decided. Being indebted to Sesshoumaru left him nothing more than pissed off and half naked. Dragging his hair over his chest a little to protect it from the low temperature of the night, he crossed his arms and tried not to openly shiver as he made his way through the country. He’d made good time during the late afternoon, but as soon as the sun had gone down his speed had slowed a great deal. But he’d gotten far enough that it didn’t matter too much; he was out in the open, where there were less low-level youkai to directly try and attack him. They favoured the woods more than open plains, being the cowardly hunters they were.

The question remained, though. Why was he out in the open on the night of the new moon? Why was he willingly walking on ground level, instead of nestled in the branches of the tallest tree he could find? Well, the answer wasn’t exactly elusive – it was his macho pride, out to kill him again. The knowledge of the debt he owed Sesshoumaru was like a lead cloak on his shoulders, heavy and cold with unease.

The easy option would have been to give into his brother’s demand and try to train that kid of his into holding her own, but actually following that bastard’s orders like a trained mutt rankled. No, he sought to regain his pride through another means.

There was one thing Sesshoumaru still wanted. One thing Inuyasha could give him.
Midnight blue eyes sought the familiar sight of the Underworld Spring – the final grave of Sou’unga, the fearsome and terrible Sword of Hell.

Funny, that every encounter with it led him full circle back to Sesshoumaru.

The hole that had closed over when the sword had fell inside, that closed Hell like a curtain passing over the void, it still stood like a silent testimony to something that had felt almost like a bad dream. But it had all been real. It was a natural spring now, almost mammoth in size. It had filled to a deep pool. . .months and months on, it was almost a lake. Nothing grew in it, nothing lived in it. It was his guess that the water was probably tainted with something; no grass grew at its edges. Feeling trepidation skate through his chest, Inuyasha walked to the very edge of the pool, and dipped his toes in the water.

It was almost impossible to feel, eerily the exact temperature of the air. If he didn’t know better he’d say the water was something other than what it so innocently appeared to be. The hair on the back of his neck quivered, but he frowned, irritably shaking off the sensation. It was just water. Just a pool of goddamn water, and he wasn’t afraid to get his ears wet this time.

Stripping out of his hakama to make sure he wouldn’t freeze to death later, he cast momentarily doubtful eyes to the inky water. Even if there was nothing there, he would at least know for sure.

Grumbling at his own insanity, standing there with only the breeze to dress his naked skin, Inuyasha dove into the pool.

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It was nearing midnight, the sky black with the loss of the moon, the only light coming from the flickering campfire Rin had created so she didn’t grow too cold. Jaken was asleep, propped against Ah-Un, his staff clutched tightly in his hands, as though worried it would be taken from him. He was cursing Inuyasha in the slumber. Rin was, oddly, sleeping once again wrapped up in Inuyasha’s haori, claiming she’d found it abandoned in a field. Her kimono was hanging over a branch to dry through the night, having been splashed liberally with mud and in need of a wash.

Sesshoumaru was seated against the base of a tree, his eyes turned to the inky night sky. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire, and the gentle gurgle of the stream nearby. A peaceful night, but he had no use for sleep.

He was wide awake when an uneven pattern of footsteps began to echo in his ears. Laboured breathing, he picked up, relaxing slightly. Just a human. The snap and rustle of twigs and branches as they moved. A missed step; the night traveller had stumbled. A rustling crash; they’d fallen. This close, he heard chattering teeth. The night was far from freezing. An ill human, he decided, fleeing from something. Perhaps a lower youkai. Or perhaps it was a thief, making a desperate flight of passage from the village. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds. No. The village was in the other direction. This person was heading for them, probably having spotted the firelight.

It was then, when the person stumbled again, that a choked curse was issued and Sesshoumaru’s eyes sprang open in surprise.

Wary despite what his senses were telling him, Sesshoumaru flowed to his feet beneath the shadows of the tree.

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The forest was out to kill him, clearly.

Unable to see in the almost oppressive darkness, he was relying on his latent sense of direction to get him where he needed to go, but that didn’t stop him from tripping on every tree root and falling into every thorny bush on the way back. Twice he’d gotten lost, and twice he’d had to follow the stars to get himself back on track. But Inuyasha could see the firelight now, and mixed relief trickled through him. He was cold, wet and dirty, and bleeding from small scratches here and there. Not to mention exhausted down to his very bones. He was about as fit as a person could be, but his nerves were frayed to the point of paranoia and it was draining to be on ultra-high alert for seven hours straight. Being ground level and alone the night he turned human. . .he was going to give himself a stroke if he didn’t find somewhere safe to rest.

Why he saw Sesshoumaru’s camp as security in the clinging darkness of the night, he had no idea. Maybe it was just the light. Hopefully he wasn’t about to give his brother the weapon he needed to kill him. Reaching up with a none-too-steady hand, he pushed dark hair off his sweat-damp face, his midnight eyes narrowed in resolve to do this and get the hell out of there. Briefly, the idea of just throwing it from a distance crossed his mind, but knowing his luck it’d land in the fire. Water was one thing, but he wasn’t sure that his prize would survive a good roasting. Licking his lips, he drew in a long breath and released it—

—and blinked hazily. Had something just moved? It had felt kind of like. . .

Cool breath brushed his shoulder, and Inuyasha yelped, brandishing Sesshoumaru’s severed arm like a sword as he spun, nearly blind eyes searching for his attacker. “Who the fuck was that?! Show yourself so I can beat the living shit out of you!” Eyes wildly scanning the surrounding trees, he couldn’t make out anything definite that would point out his visitor. Had he imagined it? Oh god, had he finally lost it? But something moved again, just a faint rustle to his ears, but it was there nonetheless. Inuyasha swallowed with difficulty and grit his teeth, a frisson of quiet horror curling in his belly. He was almost completely defenceless. Tetsusaiga was just a beat up piece of shit when he was human, and wouldn’t do squat against anything that could hide itself this well.

Then he blinked, his expression smoothing out. Straightening slowly, he cast his eyes about surreptitiously for anything that moved. Nothing. He scented the air. Just forest, wood, and damp earth. Smoke. He curled his toes against the ground. Not a single vibration. But something was most definitely there.

He took a stab in the dark. “Sesshoumaru? Stop stalking me, you creepy bastard.”

Silence.

Then a hand grabbed him by the throat from behind, pulling him back against thorny steel armour that dug into his bare skin. “Your empty bravado is unimpressive, Inuyasha. I can smell your fear,” a smooth voice said beside his ear, breath stirring the hair that fell forward over his shoulders. Claws flexed around his throat, his grip tight but far from lethal. Strangely, knowing it was his older brother actually drained off his feeling of being hunted, somewhat. Not because he wasn’t a threat, but because he wasn’t a mindless youkai hunting for food. Stupidly, it was that thought that haunted him most, those moonless lights. Coming to his senses, he snorted weakly and grasped Sesshoumaru’s wrist, attempting to break the hold. A token effort, but he wasn’t going to just stand there like an idiot. Instead, he opted to turn his face to the left slightly, trying not to flinch when his eyelashes brushed the pale skin of the youkai’s jaw.

“Let go of me,” he said flatly, turning his eyes up to his brother’s. “Have you got a thing for my neck or what? I swear, every chance you get—ow.” Blood suddenly seeped from five tiny punctures. “Great. I’m guessing you don’t want the arm then.”

Sesshoumaru shifted slightly as Inuyasha lifted the arm up for closer inspection, hanging limp and pallid in his grasp. It was essentially untouched – perfectly unharmed despite everything. It had taken him over an hour of diving and blind searching before it had revealed itself, nestled in the protective valley between two large submerged boulders. It really had been suspiciously easy to find; he didn’t want to think of who might have had a hand in that.

“It’s useless,” came Sesshoumaru’s eventual flat reply, tossing all his efforts back in his face with that one blunt statement. “Severed for over a year, not to mention sullied by that fool of a human, Takemaru. It was Sou’unga’s tool. I’ve no use for it.”

Inuyasha stared at him for a moment, then laughed shortly. “Sullied? This from the asshole who attached a human arm and used a shikon shard just so you could use the Tetsusaiga to kill me? You’re just scared it won’t stick, or whatever. Take the damn thing. I won’t do your dirty work, but I’m not just going to forget you saved my ass, even if it was for a goddamn errand. She said you couldn’t help her because you only had one arm, well, now you’ve got two.” His expression closed and resolute, the effect of his words was still dimmed slightly by the fact he was unable to storm off in a huff, since he was still being held by the throat.

His brother dipped his head slightly then to meet Inuyasha’s eyes, though the hanyou couldn’t really see them too well, even as close as he was. “Does your intelligence dim with your powers on the new moon? Or are you simply deaf? The arm is useless. Just because it hasn’t rotted down to bone—”

Inuyasha’s temper ignited with the frustration at hearing his brother flatly refuse his ‘gift’. Growling weakly with a human throat, he twisted around with one painful wrench so he could face Sesshoumaru, raised his arm, and hit him.

With his own severed arm.

Sesshoumaru snarled gutturally as the shock of the impact wore off, his hand tightening around Inuyasha’s throat like a vice. But the damage had been done. He’d copped a square slap across the face with his own hand, and it had shocked the hell out of them both. But before even the idea of laughing could cross Inuyasha’s mind, the youkai had tossed him back and few feet and struck him viciously across the face in retaliation, his claws catching the fragile skin of Inuyasha’s cheek and tearing deep gashes down the smooth flesh. Blood filled them immediately and flowed off his chin, leaving him biting his tongue against a pained yelp. Tossing the arm away, he scrambled backwards, one hand pressed to his face to staunch the bleeding, his eyes wide and wary on his brother. Shit. Shit. He always picked the stupidest times to antagonise Sesshoumaru. Doing when he was human was practically suicide. Subtly, with his right eye closed from the pain of the furrowed wounds below it, he glanced around in vain for an escape.

He glanced back in time to see Sesshoumaru advance on him again, and flinched back reflexively. Blood spilled steadily down his face, over his hand and down his forearm, where it dripped slowly off his elbow. Why did humans bleed so goddamn much? He was going to attract all kinds of predators to the area, with this much pooling in one spot. But for the moment there was only one predator he needed to worry about, and he was currently standing not three feet away from him.

But Sesshoumaru’s eyes had fallen to the arm.

Slowly reaching down, he plucked the cold appendage from the forest floor, running his eyes over the flesh that used to be part of his own body. Before Inuyasha had cut it off as his first victory wielding the Tetsusaiga. By rights, that arm was the hanyou’s trophy. No other youkai that had challenged him had ever left a bigger mark on him that the one his own half-brother had. A lucky blow, it certainly had been. But true nonetheless that he had been defeated, if only temporarily.

The arm, in the basest terms, belonged to Inuyasha. His prize. Given back as payment for a life saved.

Sesshoumaru could afford to be gracious.

Inuyasha stared as his brother raised his eyes to regard him in silence, his shadowed expression written in lines of deliberation. Warily Inuyasha stepped back to find his back supported by the rough, craggy trunk of a tree, his eyes steady on Sesshoumaru’s and unwilling to break and glance away. Then, slowly, the tall youkai reached to his left shoulder and slid aside the soft folds of his haori, carefully shrugging the ruin of his arm out of the material, baring his only flaw to the night air.

And the whole time, his eyes never left Inuyasha’s.

Seeing the unnatural stump of his brother’s arm made than hanyou edgy. He’d never seen the damage he’d wrought before—after he’d cut it off, there’d just been an empty sleeve to contend with. Not this. . .awkward uneven rounding off, the arm slightly wasted from disuse. The toned musculature that Sesshoumaru boasted was lacking in the bicep, leaving it thinner looking, and weak. Disfigured, down to the knot of scar tissue that had closed over the cracked bone he’d sheared through with the Tetsusaiga. Somehow shamed at the sight of it, he turned his face aside, his eyes seeking the darkness over the flat, unreadable gaze that bored into him.

“Squeamish, Inuyasha?” Sesshoumaru questioned coolly, taking a step toward him. “You should be proud you could inflict such an injury on me. Not even Naraku himself could say he’d done the same.”

Inuyasha swallowed, his hand pressing almost convulsively harder to the gashes on his face, the pain distracting him from his confused disgust. “Shut up. You—you got what you deserved. You tried to take what wasn’t yours, and what you couldn’t get it, you tried to kill me— and you tried to kill Kagome.” Bolstering his courage, he turned his head and looked squarely at his brother, his hand falling away from his face. “You got what you deserved.”

Even in the darkness, he could still make out Sesshoumaru’s face as he absorbed what he was saying, the words tired, but truthful and lacking his usual thoughtless fire. Watched his face melt from cool perfection to. . .well, he wasn’t sure.

“Are you trying to convince me?” the youkai lord asked, his eyes now so intense they seemed to shine in the darkness like that of a feral dog. But his brother was no such thing. Then he took a step forward, within touching distance and with Inuyasha pressed against the tree, painfully within his personal space. Shit. He tried not to squirm as hair that did not belong to him picked up in the gentle breeze, flickering across his skin, clinging slightly where his own wet hair dripped paths of water down his chest. Then he was too close, close enough for the hanyou –human- to smell the heady, stormy power that seemed trapped beneath the cloak of removed perfection that Sesshoumaru wore like armour. Strangely dizzy with it, he inhaled, barely noticing that his brother’s silky baritone was right beside his right ear, all warm breath and mocking words. “Or is it yourself you desire to convince? You cringe like a guilty mongrel, Inuyasha.”

He’d been ducking his head slightly, angry and uncertain, but at those words his head snapped up, sparks flashing in his midnight gaze. “I don’t feel fucking guilty,” he spat, teeth clenched in a snarl. “Like I care enough to feel guilty. I just don’t want to look at the fucked up leftovers of your arm.” With that last he deliberately put a sneer in his voice, jerking his chin in the direction of the mutilation. Tried desperately to hide the distraction he’d been victim to just moments before. When Sesshoumaru’s expression didn’t change, he felt the uncertain bitterness bubble up, and boil over into something corrosive and hateful. “What, you think I feel bad? Think I brought you that arm so I could make amends? You think I give a shit about you? That I wanna be friends?” Barking a short, gruff laugh at the stupidity of it, he pointed to his face, where Sesshoumaru’s deep claw marks still dripped dark blood. “This is what you are. And you can save my life for a joke, and I might give you back your arm, but it doesn’t mean anything. Because even a stupid hanyou won’t go chasing after a kick in the face.”

There was a soft thump at his feet at the arm hit the ground like so much refuse, then there were fingers gripping his chin, tilting his head up further until his eyes met his brother’s. Sesshoumaru stared at him hard for a moment, his expression blank of the ferocity he’d usually expect after such a tirade. Then brilliant golden eyes skated to his wounded cheek and lingered. “Human flesh is so sickeningly fragile. Perhaps this humanity does not suit you as well as I had originally surmised.” And before Inuyasha could so much as pause at the backhanded compliment, Sesshoumaru was gliding his thumb over the curve of his jaw, until he drew it away, slick with blood. “Then again, you survived each new moon just like this.” Running his tongue along the pad of his thumb, his eyes narrowed at the insipid taste of blatant humanity, Sesshoumaru asked one question. “How?”

“Wh—” Already reeling from the strangeness of his brother’s behaviour, that last completely threw him for a loop. He’d never been asked a question quite like that. The idea that his brother was the one doing the asking was damn near unbelievable. Shifting uncomfortably, he tore his gaze away and stared out at the surrounding trees, the dark night—anything but Sesshoumaru. “Who cares?” Brushing it off was easier than having to think about it. Inuyasha wasn’t the type to dwell on his past all that much – there was precious little to look back on and cherish. Kikyou. Kagome. A handful of months with each of them had made a big impact. . .but while he didn’t age much on the outside, he’d been alive for over two hundred years. That was a lot of moonless nights spent huddled inside the hollows of trees, staring blindly out at the night, hands clenching his knees to his chest. Nights where youkai had found him, tore into him, nearly killing him before the sun rose and his body could heal like a youkai. Nights of cold tears on his cheeks when he’d been small, still aching from the loss of his mother, desperate for safety and finding none save that which he grabbed hold of with his own two hands.

He liked to think those days gave him character. It certainly gave him the skills to survive alone. How could he tell Sesshoumaru that? Inuyasha didn’t advertise his innermost thoughts, his fears – not to anyone.

Certainly not to his bastard half-brother.

“It was. . .difficult, I expect,” Sesshoumaru said finally, his eyes turning toward the campfire, which still glowed faintly through the trees. “I know nothing of having to fight merely for the right to live. You do. Rin trusts me to pull her from the path of danger, but before that, I wish for her to know how to save herself. Travelling with me cripples her survival, ultimately. Which was why I sought a method in which to force you to teach her, in my stead.”

Inuyasha just snorted softly. “Just stop saving her,” he said, somewhat harshly in his confused exhaustion. His mouth pulled in at the corners as something writhed in his stomach. “It should be easy; you’re great at ignoring people who need help. She’ll learn the ropes eventually.”

“I did stay my hand on one occasion, merely watching the entire scene unfold,” he replied, turning his eyes back to the hanyou, almost his gaze measuring. “You saved her.”

He started, staring at Sesshoumaru with wide eyes. “You—in the woods? When she was running away from that wolf?” Granted, it had only been a starving wolf, weak with hunger but no less desperate for food, but his opinion of his brother suddenly dropped even lower. He’d watched her run for her life, screaming for him with all the breath in her lungs, and he did nothing? “Holy shit, you’re one cold bastard.”

“I do what is necessary,” his brother intoned quietly. “She was never in any real danger.”

“Bullshit!” Inuyasha cursed. “I’m fucking hyper-alert on the new moon, and I didn’t sense you anywhere.”

“You protected her.”

“Well what was I supposed to do?!” The hanyou finally exploded, glaring up at him.

“Let the damn thing rip out her entrails? She’s just a fucking kid!”

“Then what happens, Inuyasha, the next time I am genuinely not there? Tenseiga can only revive a soul once. If you refuse to mentor her—I have no alternative but to leave her with the humans,” Sesshoumaru almost spat, as though the idea was something filthy. But Inuyasha barely noticed it, still reeling from the surprise of what he’d said just before.

Tenseiga revives only once. . .

“She’s already died once before,” he said slowly, wondering why the idea of that bothered him so much. A little girl like that. . .too damn innocent, too damn weak. “How?”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes narrowed slightly, a knowing smile just barely curving the corners of his mouth. “You’ve a great weakness for children in need, don’t you, Inuyasha. A shame you won’t aid her,” he said offhandedly. Inuyasha shot him a dirty look, but didn’t say anything in reply. Why was he refusing so wholeheartedly? Because Sesshoumaru was trying to manipulate him, he reasoned. But he was doing it so that the kid wouldn’t get herself killed the next time he wasn’t around to save her. Ultimately, his cold-hearted bastard of a brother was doing something not entirely selfish. Sesshoumaru wouldn’t gain much from his help, but the kid –Rin, her name was Rin, he told himself- would. He could always tell the older youkai to teach her himself—but he’d said it himself. Fighting he knew. Surviving. . .for a youkai born with that much status and power, he’d never had to fight to survive. And from the way he’d sliced open Inuyasha’s face so easily, maybe it wasn’t such a brilliant idea for him to teach Rin anything about fighting. She’d end up minced meat.

Inuyasha fidgeted. “Why don’t you just ask Sango? She’s a girl, she’s human, and she can take down just about any youkai she comes across. She’d be way better at that kind of thing,” he hedged, casting about for any other alternative he could find.

Sesshoumaru frowned. “Rin doesn’t trust humans,” was all he replied with, but there was a strange glint in his eyes. “And she has taken a shine to you, for some unfathomable reason.”

Inuyasha screwed up his nose at the blatant distaste in that last comment. He snorted. “Must be my rugged good looks.” Actually, he was fairly sure it was his resemblance to Sesshoumaru, but damned if he was going to say something like that.

Before the youkai could voice his inevitable disagreement, there was a crackling of leaves and rustling of bushes, and a little girl dressed in a suspiciously familiar garment stumbled out into their tiny clearing. “Sesshoumaru-sama? Are you here?”

“Dammit, is that my haori?” Inuyasha blurted out once she’d gotten close enough, and her head jerked around to search him out in the darkness. “Where the hell did you find that?”

“Inuyasha!!” Rin cried out, running toward them. “Sesshoumaru-sama! I heard voices but I didn’t know it was you so I hid but then I heard my name and oh wow is that Sesshoumaru-sama’s arm?!” Nearly tripping on the hem of his haori in excitement she raced over and bent down, picking up the severed limb in her hands like it was a holy item, her eyes almost glowing with reverence. Then she sniffed it, weirdly, making Inuyasha’s eyebrows hike their way up into his hairline. She blinked up at him. “Did you bring this here, Inuyasha-san?”

“Just Inuyasha,” he said automatically. “And yeah, I guess. . .” It was too late he realised he should have thought through his response, maybe even denied it, because suddenly the kid was beaming up at him like she’d just realised the sun shone out of his ass. Then her face changed, crumpled slightly, and she hugged the arm to her chest as though it was a pillow.

Her eyes were upset when she looked back up at him. “Is. . .I’m sorry I bothered you before, Inuyasha. Please don’t hate me!” She said suddenly, earnest plea written all over her small features. “I really like you! I just. . .Rin always slows everyone down, because I get into trouble a lot—” She darted Sesshoumaru a guilty look then, and lowered her head. Inuyasha had the horrible feeling that she was beginning to cry again, and his gut twisted. Shit. He couldn’t be the bastard here.

But he wasn’t going down that easily.

“We’ll fix that, kid,” he said tiredly, turning his eyes up to Sesshoumaru with a silent message in them. Don’t think you’ve won.

Sesshoumaru’s lips curved slightly, his eyes relaxing in knowing triumph.

But the hanyou was not finished. Placing a hand on Rin’s head as she gasped in delight, he knelt slightly and caught her elated gaze. “I’ll teach you everything I know,” he said, grim sincerity ringing in his voice. His gaze rested on the youkai watching the small exchange as he spoke next. “Soon you won’t need anyone but yourself. Just like me.”

Watching the cool satisfaction in Sesshoumaru’s eyes melt into sharper narrowed thought at that last was worth the brief moment of defeat he endured, by far. Because while Inuyasha could show her everything, it would be left to his brother to think on how Inuyasha’s own jaded view on the world around him might rub off into the bright-eyed little girl. Would she too, suspect betrayal in every smile, doubt every outstretched hand of kindness? Would she strike out on her own when she grew old enough to handle herself? Would that please her youkai guardian, that cold taiyoukai who despised her entire race, but never hesitated to keep her by his side?

Questions, Inuyasha thought grimly, that Sesshoumaru would find the answer to soon enough.

He’d forced his hand – and he’d pay the price.

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